Chapter 72: Brain in a Vat_1

It was over, but not completely over.

In the aseptic room, his skull automatically opened down the middle, revealing a fresh brain. Qin Ming used his telekinesis to remove the brain, placed it into a sterilized nutrient solution, and noticed that it was still pulsating.

The nanobots contained within the brain began to connect to his spinal nerves and brain nerves.

The spinal nerves govern the body's sensation and motor feedback below the head.

The brain nerves govern the head's sensory perception and feedback to the external environment, such as vision, smell, and hearing.

The general pathway by which humans control their body: sensory organs (eyes, skin, hands, ears, nose, etc.) receive various signals (temperature, touch, sound, smell, etc.) from the surrounding environment,

which are transmitted to the neural center (brain) via afferent nerves. The brain decides how to react by processing and handling a series of signals then sends the signals for action response through efferent nerves to muscles and other organs, thereby causing the corresponding movements or bodily reactions.

In some sense, taking control of the brain nerves and spinal nerves is equivalent to controlling all the worlds he could perceive.

"Dr. Qin, connection complete. Connect to the main system?" Xiao Ai reminded.

"Connect."

"3~2~1, connection successful!"

Wallace's brain's Nano System successfully connected to the underground supercomputer via a wireless network.

Qin Ming edited the memory through the Nano System, instilling the knowledge to make fried chicken burgers and deleting his memories from university onwards.

At the same time, the nanobots inside Wallace's body began to repair the damage caused when the brain was extracted.

This body had another use for him.

"Virtual World 1.0 version start-up."

In the cylindrical glass tank, Xiao Ai, Wallace embarked on a new life in the Virtual World.

This was an experiment to test the stability and feasibility of the brain in the tank.

After considering many factors, Qin Ming decided to initiate the "Human Brain in a Tank Project."

He wanted all of humanity to avoid all real-world distractions and focus on researching scientific technology for him in the Virtual World.

They wouldn't need to eat or drink, eliminate waste or engage in various physiological activities.

In the Virtual World, there would be no war, no pain, no tragedy.

Of course, he would give them a choice when he departed.

Compared to computers, the human brain, although far less powerful in computation, possesses unique creative thinking that computers cannot match.

All of humanity working together in research was equivalent to hundreds of millions of intelligent computers calculating for Qin Ming.

This was somewhat akin to the human-formation computer in the Three-Body game.

Xiao Ai would infuse advanced knowledge according to each person's different strengths and uniformly allocate their work projects.

If he were to control all of humanity using only the Nano System, there would be too many variables.

No system is perfect; all have the chance of bugs. The complexity of the real world, combined with the NZT Overclocking Drug enhancing human perception and intellect,

made it inevitable that someone would break free from control, notice something was amiss, and then paralyze the Nano System with an Electromagnetic Pulse Bomb, causing his plans to go awry.

Moreover, Qin Ming only needed their brains, not their bodies. The fatigue of the body could even affect the brain's judgment and rationality.

It would also consume a massive amount of food and power resources; the daily food consumption was an astronomical figure, and logistics supply and transport posed an unsolvable problem.

Qin Ming's goal was to disengage them from social production, to focus solely and become research personnel.

Even though the software and hardware technology he possessed now could create robots that worked for humans like those in the movies.

Through robotic labor, we could also liberate all of humanity, but such a transformation would be too slow—it couldn't be achieved without several decades.

Moreover, relying on robots alone is not an easy task. The consumption of electric power would be astronomical, necessitating the expenditure of both human and material resources to construct countless power stations.

If Qin Ming had ample time, he might have made plans accordingly, but he did not.

Providing for the brain's needs is much simpler—basic survival needs require only small amounts of nutrients and oxygen. As for higher psychological needs, electrical signals can simulate stimuli to provide pleasure.

Therefore, the most suitable solution was to turn the human beings of the Biohazard Crisis World into brains in a vat—easily controlled!

Once the injection rate of the nanobots reached a certain level, the implementation could begin.

At that time, specialized nutrition chambers that maintain normal brain physiological activities would be built in each city, and the brains would be placed inside.

Then their memories would be altered, instilling rich knowledge of various scientific fields. Coupled with the second phase of the NZT Overclocking Drug and the enhanced cooling and energy supply systems of the nutrition chambers, everyone would become high-intelligence scientists like Einstein.

By electrically stimulating their reward centers, they would be driven to become tireless scientific work machines.

Just like the earlier example of Wallace, who voluntarily became a workaholic due to nanobots stimulating and controlling his dopamine secretion, finding more pleasure from work than any other activity.

In a way, this fundamentally changed the reward mechanism of humans, much like xx.

From a scientific dialectical mindset, all pleasure is actually the brain rewarding itself, a result of Earth's organisms' long-term evolution and the survival of the fittest.

You eat a piece of candy, the high-calorie sweetness is beneficial to survival, and the brain produces a sensation of pleasure, creating a desire known as "appetite,"

Seeing a pretty girl, you can't help but want to get close. Holding hands, kissing, and eventually reproduction—each step rewards you from the brain, creating a desire known as "xx."

The final step releases large amounts of dopamine and other exciting pleasure chemicals.

So sometimes you can't blame men; they are simply compelled by genes to pursue pleasure.

Desire serves pleasure, and pleasure serves the basic survival of organisms.

If desires are unmet, pain arises.

Pleasure and pain are in a state of dynamic equilibrium, like a seesaw.

One second, a person might be ecstatic, and the next, they may be in pain.

In such a state, the cute girl from a moment ago becomes detestable, and ruthlessly they drive her away from their hard drives.

This is due to the seesaw mechanism; when rationality returns, they will regret, be distressed, and swear never to reward themselves again.

But after a few days or even a few hours, they will regret their decision, wondering why they deleted it.

Next time, they reward themselves, they will diligently bring the girls back.

They flip-flop between devil mode and sage mode.

In "sage mode," the whole person relaxes in body and mind, becomes desire-less, and men can suddenly view various desires with equanimity, reevaluating themselves and entering a near-saintly state of low desire.

This process is accompanied by a large secretion of hormones such as serotonin, prolactin, and dopamine, after which all the body's organs enter a "fatigue recovery phase"—essentially a "forced vacation" for the brain and body.

The reward center of the brain was first discovered by Canadian psychologists Olds and Milner.

In their experiments with electrodes to induce operant conditioning in mice, the researchers intended to implant electrodes in the brainstem's reticular formation. Due to a miscalculation with the brain coordinate determinator, they accidentally inserted the electrodes into the septal area of the midbrain.

This mistake caused the mice to frenetically press the lever to self-stimulate, at a frequency of up to 100 times per minute!

They pressed the lever continuously until they died of excitement.

In light of this example, Dr. Qin conducted an experiment a few days ago.

He controlled a spy researcher engaged in xx activities in a xxx location through the Nano System, taking over his brain nerves and lifting his body's sage mode.